Bobby and the Escort
by CaffieneKitty
Summary: Bobby has an unusual customer. Totally not what you're thinking. Sheer cathartic crack.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bobby or his junkyard or the world they exist in.  
**Warnings:** No spoilers past "Everybody Loves a Clown". Meanness to inanimate objects. Pretty pointless.

- - -  
**Bobby and the Escort**  
by CaffieneKitty  
-

When she pulled into the yard, Bobby knew there'd be trouble. She smoked, lurched and squealed like a hog being slaughtered. Coming through the gate, she knocked a stack of hubcaps flying and halted in front of the yard office part of the building.

"Hi there," Bobby said from his doorstep, stooping down to see inside the shiny blue Ford Escort. The driver, a girl in her twenties, was struggling to get free of the jammed seatbelt. She won her brief battle and commenced fighting with the door. "Do you need a hand, Miss?" Bobby called, not leaving the doorstep.

"I got it, it's just tricky," she muttered, throwing herself bodily against the door. It flung open with a grating screech and she nearly tumbled out into the dust before catching herself on the door frame. "Hi," she said over the top of the vehicle, "You're Mr. Singer?"

"Yes'm. Call me Bobby."

"Hi, my name's Trina. I need you to fix my car."

Bobby glanced over the blue hatchback. It hissed and pinged in the heat, steaming a little. Something viscous dripping from underneath had already begun to puddle and ooze out from under the passenger side. The foul cloud of blue smoke it had been choking out its tailpipe was slowly dissipating in the afternoon breeze. "Any idea what's wrong with it?" Bobby asked, straight-faced.

The girl ran a hand through her hair. "Oh, I don't know just, everything. The starter won't go, then it will, it drops out of gear then it won't, the battery dies all the time, the radio goes wacky for no reason at all, tunes itself, there's really gross puddles that appear in the backseat foot wells from nowhere, it smells funny and makes horrible noises..." She shook her head and laughed curtly, "I swear, it's possessed."

Bobby hesitated before he smiled. "It's an older Ford. They're prone to all kinds of gremlins. Who did you say told you to come here?"

"Oh, a mechanic named Reg, over in Lead, he spoke very highly of you. "

"You drove this thing in this condition from _Lead?_"

She grimaced. "Took a while, but yeah."

"I'm surprised you made it at all." Bobby ran a hand over his chin. "Reg sent you to me, hunh?"

"He said that anything he can't handle, you can."

"Well. Isn't that nice of him." _Do one lousy favour for a guy..._ Bobby nodded toward a clear back area. "Best you park it over there then."

Trina squinted as she got into the driver's seat. "By that water tower thing?"

"Yep, by the water tower."

After a few failed attempts to shut the door, the girl just held it closed and rolled the sputtering, lurching car forward. Bobby guided her onto the dust-drifted concrete pad by the tower, runway-landing style.

"Will it take long to figure out what's wrong?" She asked, leaving the door open and handing Bobby the keys.

"Tell you what," Bobby said, watching as the girl stepped off the concrete. "Go on in to the office, have a seat inside. It's cooler in there, and there's coffee. Shouldn't take more than a minute to diagnose, and I'll give you an estimate."

Bobby showed Trina to the office area of the house and poured her a cup of his horrible 'customer' coffee. She sipped at it with no more than a human amount of grimacing, he noted, and headed out to tackle the car.

-

The blue hatchback hunkered in the sun, lower on its axles than its load or shock absorbers should account for. In amongst the smell of burning oil and rubber was the smell of sulfur. Nothing definite about that. This was an '80's Ford Escort; sulfur stench came fairly standard on those.

Bobby pulled a dusty tool chest over beside the concrete pad, unhooked the hose from the tap on the side of the building, and ascended the ladder to hook it to a spigot on the bottom of the water tower.

Behind him, the car creaked forward, just a bit. Maybe not quite in park, maybe the emergency brake not holding. Bobby didn't give any sign that he'd noticed.

The car eased forward again, more than a foot, brake pads squeaking faintly. Bobby stayed balanced atop the ladder, cursing the rusty threads on the spigot.

Suddenly, the Escort darted forward, engine howling, bearing straight at the base of the ladder. About five feet away, its tires locked with a slight skid, sending up puffs of dust from the wheels. The hatchback halted as though it had hit a brick wall. The engine roared, quite healthy-sounding contrary to its earlier sputtering.

Bobby glanced back over his shoulder mildly as he threaded the hose onto the rusty spigot. "Just hush, you."

The car flung itself into reverse, open driver's door swinging out wide. It got about fifteen feet back before hitting another unseen brick wall, tires locking again. It crept forward menacingly, engine wound out and wailing.

Bobby descended the ladder, hose with spray nozzle in hand. "Had this pad poured special before Devil's Gate, just in case. Figured we might have to handle busloads of your buddies." He scuffed a foot across the dust-filled groves in the concrete pad. "Did some graffiti on it before the concrete set."

The Escort snarled and spun its tires, back end slewing back and forth as the front was solidly blocked by the force of the Seal of Solomon etched in the concrete.

"I heard about you from some friends of mine. Figured you might be up and around again by now." Bobby shook the bends out of the hose, squinting at the shiny blue hatchback. "Ford Escort though? Hell of a step down from an airplane."

Bobby turned the hose on the car.

-

Trina's eyes were wide when Bobby came back in, spattered with mud and oil. Clouds of steam still rose from the area beside the water tower.

"W- was all that noise from _my_ car?"

Bobby wiped his hands off on a shop rag. "'Fraid so."

"Is it fixable?"

Bobby grinned ruefully. "Well... Escorts are a real pain, to be honest, Miss. Most scrapyards won't even touch 'em. Yours is worse off than most."

"It's that bad?"

"The technical term we mechanics use in this situation is 'Crusher Bait'"

The girl was crestfallen. "But... it's so cute."

_People and their emotional attachments to cars._ "Cute won't make the car go, Miss. That thing's got so much wrong with it, it'll like as not get you killed if you keep driving it. Cost you twice the purchase price of a _good_ used car to fix it."

"But I can't afford to buy another car! I need that car to get to work and-"

Bobby held up his hand. "Tell you what. I've got a nice little Honda Civic down in back. It's a little old and not terribly pretty, but there's not a thing wrong with it otherwise. I'm gonna let you borrow it, no charge or nothing, for as long as you want, 'til you get yourself a new car."

Trina frowned, "Really?"

"Sure, just so long as you leave that Escort here as scrap today."

She looked towards the water tower dubiously. "I don't know..."

"I can't let you get back into that Escort, Miss. You'd be endangering yourself and everyone else on the road. I wouldn't feel right."

-

Trina went off in the 'it would be cute if it wasn't so rusty' Honda Civic happily enough. Bobby knew she'd lose her attachment to her 'cute' demonic car quickly when she got in the Honda and exclaimed "The door shuts!"

He waved her goodbye from the gate, transfer papers for the Escort in hand. Loaning out the only vehicle he had working, even though he'd only just gotten it put together after Sam and Dean had ditched the Caravan a few weeks back, was worth it to keep the evil thing off the streets.

He looked back down toward the water tower as the Escort sputtered slowly to life again, squealing its alternator belt in indignant fury.

First, clear out the demon. Wouldn't take long now that the fight was mostly gone out of it. Then torch the damned car thoroughly before it went on the crush pile. No point stripping it for parts first. No telling what effect possession would have on car parts, and no sense risking it.

Besides, there was no way Bobby would extend some poor soul's misery by selling them parts for car like that. Even when they weren't demon-possessed, mid to late 80's Ford Escorts came straight from the depths of Hell.

Bobby grabbed a gas can and a blowtorch and went to deal with the car.

- - -  
(That's all. Like I said, pretty pointless. But I feel better now. Frigging cars.) 


End file.
